


stone by stone, stick by stick

by dis0rderly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Minor Finn Collins/Raven Reyes, Minor Raven Reyes/Kyle Wick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dis0rderly/pseuds/dis0rderly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their hands touch every now and then, but Bellamy’s attention is focused solely on the accident growing in her belly. Raven falls asleep to Bellamy’s whispering voice and his fingers making patterns on her skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stone by stone, stick by stick

**Author's Note:**

> found this gathering dust from last year, completely disregards season 3.

When Bellamy walks into Camp Jaha, he is alone. No one is surprised, heads pointedly turned away from the gates once Bellamy has stepped out of Clarke’s arms. He’s tired, face strained from the past few weeks. But more than that, he looks broken. Like he is holding himself together with the muscle memory of Clarke’s goodbye, wrapped around him too quick before disappearing into the forest.

Raven is the first to break, taking a sidelong glance— _I just need to know he’ll survive this_ , she thinks to herself—before returning her attention to the medic. Wick is by her side, walking back and forth and talking on and on, worriedly. She’s been tortured after all.

 _I already had a bullet lodged into my spine,_ she wants to bite out. _I’d take another drill to my leg if it meant I could run again._

Bellamy would have understood, she thinks; Bellamy knows the sacrifice of freedom. But there are shadows behind his eyes and hidden on his shoulders, forcing him to drag his feet. The shadows look like eight year olds with backpacks too big for them, ready for a life they’ll never get to have. Bellamy and Clarke understand a little too much what it means to have freedom.

“Raven?” Wick’s got his hand on her cheek, eyebrows knit together. She lays her head on his warmth and manages a small smile. Bellamy took a bullet to the heart today, but they will all survive.

.

.

The memorial service is bleak, as expected. With Lincoln’s guidance, Kane adapts their rituals to those of the Grounders. Here on Earth, they would bury what bodies come from war. Except even now, no soil has been upturned, no corpses to lay to rest, no trace of those that passed.

As the fire moves down the circle, Raven realizes that anyone who grew up on the Ark is already used to mourning for bodies that will never be seen again—can’t waste resources, after all. She lights up the wild flower in her hand and distinctly remembers the smell of Finn on her first night down here. Everyone grimaces as the fire burns down the stem of their flowers and reaches their palms.

Lincoln is humming, a simple tune that Octavia is able to follow. Soon the entire circle has followed the repetitive sound. When the last flower has burnt itself into skin, silence falls. But not the kind of quiet that leaves ringing ears, not the kind Raven experienced in the Ark.

On the ground there is the whisper of the wind, pushing at the fire, blowing the trees and her hair. The smell of smoke rises and disappears, just as crickets have begun their song. They are lacking nothing, unlike when they were in the Ark.

Here, tears are wept loudly. Freely.

It makes her feel nauseous.

.

.

Raven already knows she’s in a dream.

She’s in Bellamy’s tent and her legs are working, tucking into his sides every time she drops herself back down on him. His hands have settled themselves on her hips, pulling her in deeper, harder, meeting her thrusts with his. She had never been with anyone but Finn before this. It’s good, great even. But it’s not real.

It’s too comfortable, too warm. Too _vulnerable_.

When she crumples into Bellamy, still feeling the spasms between her legs, Raven remembers. This is when she is supposed to wake up.

It’s mechanical, how she dresses herself. She holds her breath, waiting for him to say it.

“Does that help?” Bellamy asks.

Raven finally wakes, gasping for air. Sweat is clinging to her, the heavy weight of Wick’s arm on her stomach, uncomfortable and unwelcome. She pushes his arm away but cuddles further into his body, trying to steady her heartbeat.

 _Not a dream,_ her subconscious whispers. _A memory_.

.

.

When Raven starts vomiting, it causes a stir. The bug catches on for the next week. When everything has settled, only Raven and one other girl are left with knees on the ground, head leaning on the mouth of a makeshift bucket.

It’s been almost six months since she landed on Earth and the cold winds of winter are starting to settle. They are afraid of the coming frostbite, but they are more afraid of illnesses that won’t seem to go away. Raven volunteer’s herself for testing after she has been sick for two weeks.

“You’re pregnant.”

It echoes in her head, like some sick joke that she can’t make sense of. _She still has an IUD_. But the air down here is different and things don’t work the same. When Raven was shot, they said she lost the only chance she had at a family. When Finn was shot, Raven lost the only family she ever had. It looks like Mother Earth’s twisted idea of a consolation prize is growing in her stomach.

Raven heaves her breakfast at Abby Griffin’s feet.

.

.

When Raven tells Wick, there is a small part of her that wishes very much for him to be happy about it. She’s holding her—still flat—stomach, forcing herself to sound almost bored about this whole thing.

Wick’s eyes are bright for a quick second, then he goes rigid, shuts down. Raven feels cold take over her body at the sudden blank look he gives.

“I’m sterile, though,” he says. _Just like you said you were_ , he doesn’t say. And as if she doesn’t hear what his eyes are trying to say, “completely, one hundred percent, no chance at kids, sterile.”

His eyes drop to the floor as Raven processes his words. Because _no. There is no way. It’s been months since she and…_ Except, it hasn’t been months. It’s only been weeks.

Almost exactly four weeks.

.

.

(When he comes back without Clarke, Bellamy mopes all day and doesn’t even bother to fight against Abby and Kane’s rules anymore. He is depressed for two weeks before Raven decides to do something about it.

“Bellamy! Can you come here for a second,” Raven motions for him to enter her tent. She commands instead of asks, causing a spark of annoyance behind his eyes that looks just like the old Bellamy.

“What is it, Reyes?” Bellamy asks, managing to mumble with his familiar gruff. Then he stops as he sees Raven struggling to remove her jeans from her bum leg. In an even rougher voice, he says, “What the fuck, Raven.”

“Don’t mistake me for someone who cares,” she answers, easily. He flinches, recognizing his words. Raven finally manages to get her jeans off, sitting up on her cot and turning to him. “You’ve always been a pain in the ass, Bellamy, but at least you used to do something. You’re useless as you are and everyone’s been stepping around you because they think you’re going to fall apart. Are you going to fall apart, Blake?”

 _Time to move on_. It’s ringing in their heads, unspoken, filling the tent with angry tension.

Raven pushes herself to stand but doesn’t bother to walk without her brace on, looking straight at Bellamy. To his credit, Bellamy gazes right back, absorbing her challenge rather than letting her words shoot right through him. Raven takes off her hair tie, then her shirt.

Shaking out her hair, she says, “If you’re looking for someone to talk you down, tell you that you’re just upset and not thinking straight, I’m not that girl.”

Bellamy swallows, walks to her. “Good.”

He doesn’t run once it’s over, heartbeats calming and breaths easing. Instead, Bellamy helps Raven dress. Underwear over legs— _lift your ass a bit—_ black top slipping over head, jeans— _Christ, Reyes, how do you do this every day?_ —followed by brace, then jacket. Bellamy helps her up, hand on the small of her back as they walk out of the tent.

“Hey, Bellamy?” Raven stuffs her hands in the pockets of her jacket, bites her lip, nervously. “Does that help?”

Bellamy stops mid-stride, hands clenching; unclenching. He gives what could be a nod, then walks out.)

.

.

It doesn’t take too long for Raven and Wick to start fighting. She knows why he’s mad, but he knows why she’s mad, too.

“You’re the one that said _I_ had to help him out,” she shouts out. “You practically threw me at him like you’re my handler.”

“Well I never thought that this would happen!” Wick answers back, like it is enough to make up for everything. In one movement he has flipped over his worktable, half-made work breaking and disappearing to different parts of the tent. “I just thought you’d understand him.”

Because she did, she understood Bellamy the most. Finn is _dead_ , after all. Raven almost cries because, “This is so fucked up, Wick.”

“Yeah, Reyes,” he says. Wick puts a hand to grip at his neck, letting out a long, harsh sigh. “It is.”

Raven walks out and she knows that they’re over.

.

.

When Bellamy walks into her tent, Raven looks at him, momentarily confused. The best thing about being a mechanic is how easy it is to get lost in the work—because it’s easier to fix something broken, _as long as it’s not me_ —and just forget. But then she remembers and the broken radio falls on her bed with a muted thump, bounces, settles.

“I…” Raven isn’t actually sure what to say. She knows what to feel, she’s practically choking on it.

“Yeah,” Bellamy shrugs. He takes a step, then hands her a cup of tea that Lincoln said, _helps with the nausea._ Bellamy is the most open book she knows, but for the first time since she’s met him, his eyes are neutral. Distant.

Raven pushes aside her tools with one hand; with the other, she pats the space she’s made. She closes her eyes, sipping the tea until she feels his weight beside her, warm and solid. Leaning back, her eyes flick open to meet his and suddenly, _there we go_ , she can see his hesitation.

“Can I—?” Bellamy puts out a tentative hand. Raven stares at it for a long second, puzzled. When she finally understands, she bursts into laughter—because _you are such a weirdo, Blake_. He takes that as a yes and places his palm on her flat stomach, fingers dancing lightly on her shirt.

And there it is, so strong that she has to take in a breath. Delight washes over Bellamy’s entire face, eyes flickering with a warmth that _consumes._ Raven realizes that it was actually a large part of her that wished very much for this reaction. Tears, ones she has been holding in since—, trace a path down her face, the way his kisses used to in the Ark. Raven doesn’t even realize she’s crying.

Bellamy lifts up his free hand to wipe her cheek, offering her a wry smile and the tenderness in his eyes, before returning his attention to her stomach. _Hi, baby_ , he has pushed up her shirt to make sure it can hear him. _It’s me, baby, it’s your daddy_.

She sighs, content, a worn out smile making its way on her face. Raven puts her empty cup beside her, then puts out a hand to understand what Bellamy’s going on about. _Hey, baby_ , she whispers in her head. _It’s me, your mommy_.

Their hands touch every now and then, but Bellamy’s attention is focused solely on the accident growing in her belly. Raven falls asleep to Bellamy’s whispering voice and his fingers making patterns on her skin.

When she wakes up, he’s asleep on her dead leg, hand still on her stomach. Raven ruffles his hair softly so he doesn’t wake and—

and—

_they are building themselves back together, little by little._

.

.

They stay in Bellamy’s tent because _it’s_ _easier this way_ , but it mostly means her cot is pushed beside his and now she has to wake up to his hand pressed to her stomach _every single morning, Bellamy, what the fuck._ Raven refuses to admit that she prefers the set up, but only because they’ve moved her tent beside his and now she has more space for building shit. Also, her tent used to be next to Wick’s.

The weird part about the pregnancy is that she’s getting little gifts dropped off at random hours in the day. Jasper—face too pale, shadows too dark, eyes too bright—slips into the tent with a mixture deemed, “moonshire, except for pregnant chicks. So—uh—without the kick, sorry about that.”

“I’ll take it,” Raven smiles sincerely, because he’s trying. _Back together, little by little_ , she reminds herself. Five minutes later, she is puking the not-alcohol together with half of lunch.

Lincoln is one of her constant visitors, coming in an hour after lunch with a large refill container of her pregnant lady tea. He usually catches her when she’s face down on the bucket, patting her back softly and saying, “Life is a gift.”

 _It doesn’t feel like a gift from where I’m sitting_ , she’d say if she could. He hums as he makes his way out.

.

.

The best gifts are from Bellamy, or maybe she just thinks that. Even though they’re sleeping together— _but we’re not having sex, geez_ , she tells anyone that asks, _do pregnant women even have sex?—_ Raven barely gets to see Bellamy except for the hour before she falls asleep, sometimes not even then. Sometimes she’s half asleep when Bellamy stumbles in, quietly slipping into his cot, the whisper of his fingers on the slight swell of her body. (She’s been leaving that part exposed without even noticing.)

“Where’r you goin’?” Bellamy’s gruff voice mumbles, half-woken by Raven stumbling from the knot of their blanket and legs.

“To pee, go back to sleep,” Raven hisses before the nausea kicks in. She dreads her morning routine of puking and peeing, but by the time she returns to the tent, she is awake enough to search for her gift.

Sometimes he gives her shiny rocks, or scrap metal from some ruins. Today he leaves her mint, to chew on. Raven wants to smile but Bellamy is looking at her with bleary eyes. She stuffs a leaf in her mouth and settles back in bed. Within minutes, Bellamy’s breathing is steady and Raven finds herself falling back asleep.

.

.

(When Bellamy and Raven fuck the second time, he is on top. He pushes in rough and kisses with teeth. It suits her just fine.

Sweat mingles with tears and Raven refuses to look Bellamy in the eye. Instead she looks at they way he pulls her into him, the working of his muscles, the lazy flop of her bum leg. Bellamy was not Finn, or Wick.

Raven comes undone with a choked cry, digging nails into his shoulder and urging him to go harder. She understands Bellamy; she gets his moods and his pain. Raven knows him.

She thinks to herself, _this is how it feels to fuck someone broken_.)

.

.

When Bellamy goes off on a one-week trip, it stresses Raven out. Although she and Wick still remain civil, Raven finds it difficult to handle him on a daily basis without the sound of Bellamy’s _hi baby, how were you and mommy today?_

The nausea is wearing off, with the help of mint leaves and tea, but she can’t find it in herself to eat most foods. The vomit has an acid taste in her tongue that never truly leaves throughout the day. Late at night, when Raven stumbles into the tent, it is to an empty bed and quiet night. She tries to convince herself that she doesn’t miss Bellamy, she simply misses their routine.

Raven and Wick are fighting and it’s giving her a headache, the kind that pumps a rush of blood through her ears. Raven is in a constant state of half-nausea, the lack of sleep making it hard for her body to keep itself up. She is irritable and she knows that she’s taking it out on Wick.

“Well you know wh—” Raven stops when the sticky feeling of her underwear suddenly gushes to her thighs. Blood pumps harder in her head and her anger dissipates into worry. “Wick?”

Wick stops when Raven does, watching as she presses a hand between her thighs. When Raven’s fingers come out damp with redness, his eyes go wide. In a whisper, “Raven.”

“Wick!” Raven cries before her eyes roll back and she passes out.

“RAVEN!”

.

.

She wakes up in the medic cabin, Wick passed out on the chair beside her bed. Raven is disoriented for a few long seconds before the panic sets in and she rips the blanket off her body to look at her stomach. _Please be okay, please be okay, please be okay._

“You’re stable, Raven,” Abby Griffin tells her, appearing out of nowhere. Wick wakes up with a twitch with Raven’s ecstatic holler.

“Damn, Abby, I was so scared when I saw the blood,” Raven tells the doctor. She has a smile on her face, but it drops when she looks at the other woman’s expression. Monotone, she asks, “What’s wrong?”

“We’re not exactly sure why you were bleeding,” Abby’s eyebrows knit together. She moves closer to Raven’s bed. “We’ll be monitoring you, but it looks like you’re doing okay. Keep your head up, Raven.”

 _Finn used to say that,_ she thinks to herself. Wick asks if she’s doing alright and she nods but barely hears him. He slips out and Raven is still staring at the growing bump of her belly. _Finn’s dead. But I won’t let anything happen to you, baby._

.

.

Two days later, she’s back in her tent, on bed rest. Bellamy is coming back today and she’s still bleeding on and off. Raven has prayed to every god she knows, begging to let her baby be okay.

“Bell—” Raven starts to say when the tent flap opens. Her words die off when she sees who now stands two feet from her bed. Raven’s eyes narrow as she recognizes who is in front of her. She’s throwing her bowl of fresh tea before she even realizes it, screaming, “Get the _hell_ out of my tent!”

Lexa dodges and steps even closer. “I mean you no harm, Raven of the Sky People.”

“Clarke’s not here, so get out of my fucking tent,” Raven growls out. Her last ditch effort is a pocketknife under her bed. Lexa manages to step away from her throw, but gets a small scratch. Raven feels a flicker of satisfaction that does nothing to calm her.

“I did not come for Clarke,” Lexa says, softly. Raven’s eyes widen and she put a protective hand over her stomach. Lexa smiles indulgently. “Life is a gift.”

 _If I have to hear that sentence one more time,_ Raven almost bites out. She stops herself when Lexa opens the bag strapped across her body. The only good thing about everyone who did not help make this baby is the fact that they all like to give gifts. The commander’s is a jar of something brownish-green and grainy.

“The air on the ground causes much bleeding,” Lexa tells her. “Our healers found an herb that strengthens muscles in the stomach, keeping children safe while they are growing.”

Lexa goes on to give instructions on how to drink the herb. _It is ground for potency._ _You must drink this everyday until you cannot see your toes, then it will be safe._

Raven’s impressed. And just a little bit thankful. “Why are you doing this?” she asks, then regrets it when she hears Lexa’s soft laugh. She isn’t even surprised to hear that it is because _life is a gift._

“Raven!” Bellamy’s voice shouts in the distance, coupled with the sound of running. Raven looks towards the entrance.

“Bellamy!” Raven calls out, willing him to appear before her eyes. There’s a scuffle outside of the tent, grunts and the sound of metal hitting metal, flesh hitting flesh. Then he finally appears.

“Raven,” Bellamy sighs. He looks like he’s run through hell just to reach her, his eyes blazing with an intense kind of protectiveness. It fills her eyes with tears, like everything is _finally_ going to be okay.

“Bell,” Raven manages to choke out before bursting into tears, pushing her face into her hands. Bellamy strides to Raven’s cot, picking her up and dumping her on his lap.

Once Raven has tucked herself into the crook of his neck, still crying, Bellamy turns his gaze towards Lexa. Angrily he hisses, “Clarke’s not here. So get the hell out of our tent.”

Lexa laughs and makes her way out. When her body is halfway out the tent, she turns back to say something, so soft Raven almost doesn’t hear it.

_You are one person split into two._

.

.

When Raven wakes up, curled into Bellamy, she feels a wave of relief at his familiar solidness. Bellamy’s hand is warm on her shirt, unconsciously pushed up after seven days of covering her stomach at night.

Raven leaves the bed for her morning routine just as Bellamy is opening his eyes. As she is making her slow walk back, Bellamy comes up to her side and in one movement, sweeps her up into his arms. Raven shrieks and heads turn towards the pair and, in her head, she grumbles, _great, it took weeks to convince them we weren’t sleeping together._

“You scared me for a bit, there, Reyes,” Bellamy husks, faintly. He settles them both back into bed and Raven pushes herself further into his chest. “One of the kids rode out to meet us and I ran the last few hours back.”

The arm Raven is leaning on pulls her in tighter, his right hand resting on her waist. Bellamy’s left hand plays with the skin of her belly while he looks at the air behind her. Raven’s finds herself lacing her right hand with the hand on her waist. “When I saw the blood, I thought maybe I had fucked something up because you weren’t there.”

“Baby’s okay,” Bellamy says. _You’re okay, I’m okay, we’re all okay,_ is what he’s trying to say. And for the first time in days, Raven actually thinks she will be. They trace with their left hands, a pattern of hearts and squiggles and comfort. And it starts in that moment, the recognition of something big, something that seemed lost for a while, something Raven was never really sure she had.

“I don’t love you,” she suddenly blurts out, more to herself than to Bellamy. Raven looks up at him, hand stopping its movement. His hand bumps into hers and slips between the open invitation of her fingers. Their eyes meet as they grasp at each other tentatively, desperately. It feels like—

 

a warmth that consumes

building themselves together, little by little

like—

 

 _family_.


End file.
